Tafika and his internal conflict

Tafika has reached an important stage in his life, which has been very clear over the past month.

It seems that he is now at a point in his rehabilitation where he is in a state of conflict; he wants to join release-phase orphans, Chamilandu and Batoka, on their ventures into the depths of Kafue National Park, yet he is lacking the confidence to make that leap, choosing to stay with the rest of the herd. Tafika witnessed a fellow orphan being killed by lions in 2016 and has since remained inside the protective boma on most nights.

This internal conflict is causing Tafika a lot of frustration, which he has been re-directing towards the younger orphans, frequently displaying hyper-aggressive behaviours, above the levels normally seen within the herd. When Batoka is with the herd, Tafika engages in sparring sessions with him, enabling him to release his frustrations to some extent, whilst attempting to establish his dominance.

However, since Batoka is an older and more experienced elephant, he often wins the battle for dominance, as Tafika walks away in defeat. When Batoka is not with the herd, Tafika will then attempt to assert his authority towards the younger orphans, being more certain of the outcome.

When such aggressive interactions happen in the presence of Chamilandu, she is quick to head over to Tafika and stop him from bullying the younger ones, which mirrors the behaviour of females in wild elephant herds, as they will start to push out unruly bulls.

Recently, he is behaving aggressively far too often, leading the team at the Elephant Orphanage to implement separation techniques to encourage Tafika to spend less time with the younger orphans and more time with Chamilandu and Batoka, which would in turn aid his development.

However, due to Tafika’s nervousness and the Elephant Orphanage’s ethos of allowing the orphans to choose when they want to leave the orphan herd, the team does not want to force Tafika to join them. Rather, the team will now have to closely monitor Tafika’s behaviour and hope that he soon starts to see a greater reward in being outside of the boma, with more space to roam and more vegetation to feed on, just as Chamilandu and Batoka did.

This is both an interesting and tense time for Tafika (as with many wild bulls of his age) but he will hopefully soon enter the release phase of his rehabilitation and learn to enjoy a more wildlife away from the restrictions of the protective boma.

We look forward to sharing more stories about Tafika’s exploits with you in the year ahead! If you’re interested in learning more about this iconic species or the other animals that we work hard to protect please visit our website .

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